Senior Australian of the Year

Nominee

2019 NSW Senior Australian of the Year Nominee

Professor Gordon Parker AO

State: New South Wales

A gifted psychiatrist, Professor Gordon Parker founded the Black Dog Institute to improve community awareness and professional management of mood disorders, achieving international recognition for his research and translating findings into educational programs for health professionals and the community. Alongside his psychiatric career, Gordon is also a successful creative writer.

A gifted psychiatrist, Professor Gordon Parker founded the Black Dog Institute in 2002 to reduce the incidence and stigma of mental illness, the suicide rate, and to empower people to live mentally healthy lives.

As Executive Director of the Institute, Gordon increased community awareness of the differing depressive and bipolar disorders, developed diagnostic tools and translated research findings about their causes and treatments into educational programs for health professionals and the community.

For two decades Gordon was also Head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW and Director of the Division of Psychiatry at Prince of Wales and Prince Henry Hospitals. In 2004, Gordon received a Citation Laureate as the most highly cited in the field of 'Psychiatry/Psychology'. He has published 20 books and more than a thousand research papers.

Alongside his psychiatric career, Gordon has been a successful creative writer, newspaper columnist, science broadcaster, and television script writer. He is also a published novelist (last novel 2017) and a playwright.